


a ghost you say?

by fictionalcloudz



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Halloween, Les Mis Halloween Exchange 2019, Marius has unrealistic reactions to absolutely everything, Marius-centric, Pranks and Practical Jokes, i spent like 5 years thinking of a title for this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-03 21:01:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21185924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionalcloudz/pseuds/fictionalcloudz
Summary: my piece for the 2019 Halloween Exchange! Courfeyrac bribes Marius into helping him prank jbm. Marius does not take this well, as he’s an overdramatic weirdo (me too marius me too)Or, in which Marius Pontmercy reacts unrealistically to literally everything





	a ghost you say?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Akallabeth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akallabeth/gifts).

Marius immediately knows it’s far beyond ‘bad idea’ and deep into the realm of ‘well, I’m almost definitely going to regret this’ and ‘guess I won’t be alive for Halloween.’

Marius doesn’t want to help Courfeyrac prank anyone. Especially given his pranks’ tendency to end badly. Marius has heard way too many tales of his exploits, told by Grantaire and Jehan, who had gleefully watched horror dawning on Marius’ face.

So he knows it’s not going to be as hilarious as his roommate promises. But then Courfeyrac offers to make supper for two weeks and... well, Marius is pretty broke. He agrees.

_This is the end_, Marius thinks miserably, and sighs - just loud enough to get Courfeyrac’s attention.

“What’s with all this _drama_?” Courfeyrac sings, draping himself over the back of the sofa that Marius is slouching on. “This is gonna be brilliant!”

“It’s really not,” Marius says.

“Come on, this one is totally harmless,” Courfeyrac says. “It’s just a little... pre-Halloween decoration.” He shrugs, and adds, grinning, “I’ve done far, _far_ worse.”

It’s not very comforting, but Marius will take what he can get.

“Yeah, okay, Courf,” he says, without real complaint. When Courfeyrac gets excited about something the mood is contagious, and it’s always fun to get swept up in it. As much as Marius protests, he can’t help but go along with Courfeyrac’s schemes.

At least this one sounds better than the time he was caught red-handed filling Enjolras and Combeferre’s apartment with rainbow balloons (Courfeyrac insists that was harmless too, and that his two best friends are unfairly exaggerating the story more and more each time they tell it).

***

Given Bossuet’s tendency to lose keys in world record times, all of his friends keep spare keys to his, Joly and Musichetta’s flat for when he inevitably loses his own.

They don’t abuse this power too much, really. Or, not that often. The keys are normally just for letting themselves in when visiting, and when Bossuet needs a replacement key.

For Courfeyrac, they’re quite handy for pranking Bossuet and his significant others when they’re not home. He snickers and twists the key in the door of their flat and lets himself and a nervous-looking Marius in. Both of them are carrying bags of stuffed toys, collected from their friends.

Marius is sent to search the flat for Joly’s hoard of stuffed animals. They’re scattered all over, on couches and shelves and beds and hidden in cupboards. Joly has seemingly endless supply of penguins, giraffes and cats in bright colours, in luminous pinks, yellows and blues. They set up a barricade of the animals in their small passageway, and drape a silky black cloth lined with red spider web decorations over it.

The next step is to hide plastic creepy crawlies everywhere. Spiders stuck to light switches, centipedes in shoes, cockroaches in the fridge.

When they’re done, Marius concedes that the prank is, actually, harmless.

“I may have been a bit dramatic,” he admits as Courfeyrac locks the front door behind them with a shit-eating grin.

Courfeyrac raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “A bit?”

“Yes, a bit!”

“From the moment I suggested it, you thought we’d actually _die_. You acted like I was leading your poor, tortured soul to the guillotine!” Courfeyrac says, a twinkle in his eye.

“I’ve heard a lot of stories about your pranks!” Marius protests.

“I’m still alive!”

“Oh, really? You are? How do I know you’re not a ghost?” Marius says. “Oh God, my roommate’s a ghost!”

“I’m a ghost? You’re dead to half the people on this planet because you pour your milk before the cereal! Which, by the way, if I haven’t said it enough, is fucking ridiculous,” Courfeyrac says. “Also, you can walk through ghosts, and you can’t walk through me!”

To prove his point, he veers into Marius, who shrieks and races down the corridor to the elevator.

He presses the down button and dodges another of Courfeyrac’s attacks. Courfeyrac finally gets him, wrapping him up in a hug. “See? Not a ghost,” he laughs.

“That’s what you _say_,” Marius says into his shoulder.

Then the elevator doors slide open with a hiss and their laughs die in their throats.

“Oh! Hi,” Joly says. Bossuet has a bandage on his bald head. He gives them a little wave.

“Hey,” Musichetta says, with a smirk that suggests she knows all. “Fancy seeing you two here.”

“Chetta! Jolllly, Boss, great to see you guys,” Courfeyrac says, giving them nervous finger guns. “You know what? We were... we were just leaving.”

“What did you do this time?” Bossuet asks.

“Great question, really, I’d ask you that myself but...” Courfeyrac gives Marius a wink. “TO THE STAIRS!” he yells, and they take off.

Later, the ABC group chat receives a picture of Bossuet sprawled over the pile of stuffed toys, evidently having tripped over it in the dark hallway. It’s followed shortly by another of Joly using tongs to hold a plastic spider away from himself. And a text from Musichetta: _it’s on_

***

Marius hasn’t slept well since Musichetta’s text. He’s consumed more caffeine in the past three days than he normally would in a year (and it doesn’t help that supper for two weeks is going to be McDonalds, because Courfeyrac cheats with his bribery. Marius should have known). His nerves are frayed, he’s on permanent fight-or-flight mode. More the flight part.

He knows he’s overdramatizing the pranks but he can’t help it! Grantaire has been feeding him stories of Musichetta’s elaborate revenge pranks and... well, sleep became unimportant once he heard some. Why on _earth_ did he agree to that?

His head kicks into overdrive as he stands outside his and Courfeyrac’s apartment, searching for his keys in his jacket pockets, his backpack, the shopping bag of groceries. Courfeyrac will be home soon to get changed for the ABC Halloween party. If Marius can’t find his keys he’ll just wait.

A group of college kids pass him in the corridor and give him sympathetic looks. They’re all dressed up for Halloween, several with fake vampire teeth and gunshot tattoos on their foreheads. One has a demon tail, the other angel wings, and they’re holding hands. A few people who might be Harry Potter characters. Some prisoner with a loaf of bread.

Eventually he stabs his left palm on something hard and pointy at the bottom of his bag. He breathes a sigh of relief - they haven’t stolen his key to break in. But-

“Crapsticks,” he mutters. His palm is bleeding, not lightly. He’ll need a plaster.

Marius lets himself in, closes the door and feels for the light switch with his uninjured hand. He flips the switch and something sparks. The light crackles and doesn’t turn on.

Oh, great, Marius thinks. I told Courf we should get a new lightbulb, but noooo.

He puts the bags down and tries to find his phone for the flashlight. But without light and only one hand there isn’t much he can do, so he gives up and stumbles down the hallway in the dark to find the next room. On his way he trips over their small table for random shit, which seems to have moved while he was out.

Marius shudders; he can feel the blood from his cut on his wrist. He cups his right hand under his left to catch a drop before it hits the floor. He’s never liked blood. Especially his own. If he can just find the bathroom...

He walks straight into a couch which is not supposed to be there.

“Holy guacamole,” he hisses, toes stinging.

Then he notices the faint orange glow. It seeps out from under the couch, in the cushions, from the underside of what must be tables.

Marius’ eyes widen. If there’s something weird in the apartment, like heck _he’s_ going to be the one to check what it is. He slowly, quietly makes his way around the furniture with his back against the wall. The back of his head collides with a picture frame.

But… there are no pictures hanging on this wall. The pictures are meant to be on the other side of the room.

Marius can feel his heart thumping uncomfortably hard in his chest. He tries not to panic but the strange orange light is freaking him out. Not to mention the _blood_ dripping out of _his hand_.

Without taking his eyes off the living room, Marius reaches around the corner for the kitchen light switch. It’s not an easy maneuver. There’s something sticky on the switch. Like glue. Marius snatches his hand away. He peeks around the corner and screams.

A Jack-o’-lantern grins at him from the kitchen table. It has a Lenny face carved on it, candles burning behind each eye.

Marius backs out of the kitchen, runs into a table in the dark and wrenches the door open. He is _not_ going in there again alone in the dark until Courfeyrac comes with him.

The hallway is so bright his eyes burn. They are wide and spooked, his breaths coming quickly. He has blood all over his hands. He sinks down against the wall, only to look up and make eye contact with a group of ghosts. He stifles another scream.

At a second glance, they’re just a group of students with really good Halloween costumes.

Marius gives them an awkward smile. “Um.”

“Oh my God, what happened to your hands?” one asks. She’s wearing a grey, old-fashioned dress and a lot of white makeup. There are dark circles of makeup under her eyes, and it looks like she has run charcoal through her long hair, which has been dyed a pale blue. She’s easily the most beautiful person he’s ever seen.

“Are you alright?” she asks. Her voice is soft, caring. She steals his breath away.

“Uh, yeah, yeah, I just accidentally stabbed myself with my keys, do you have any tissues? It looks worse than it is, I think, it’s only actually one hand. I just got blood all over the other one because I couldn’t find the taps and plasters in my apartment because none of the lights would work,” Marius says in one breath. Then he realizes: “Oh. I think my friends rigged my apartment with a bunch of stuff for Halloween. Dammit, I _told_ Courf.”

The ghost girl hands him a fistful of tissues from her bag and he takes them gratefully. “Thank you so much,” he says, wiping off the blood and glue.

“You’re welcome,” she says. “I’ve got to go now, my friends are having a party. Will you be okay?”

“Yeah,” Marius says. “I’ll survive.”

“Okay,” the ghost girl says. She gives him a sweet, hopeful smile. "I’ll see you around?”

“I’ll see you around,” Marius echoes, and she disappears.

***

Marius is sitting outside their apartment, a dazed look on his face.

“What are you doing out here?” Courfeyrac asks, walking up to him.

He looks up as though startled out of a daydream. “Don’t go inside, it’s horrifying, I _told_ you, Joly, Bossuet and Musichetta got us back, also I just saw the most beautiful ghost ever.”

“Woah, woah, slow down,” Courfeyrac says. “_Marius, why do you have blood all over your hands?_”

“Oh, I just stabbed myself with my keys, it’s not that bad,” he says distractedly. “It’s written in the stars! She lives in this building! I think.”

“Who does?”

Marius pales. “I don’t know her name! How am I going to find her, Courf? Why didn’t I ask for her name?”

“Have you just been sitting outside this whole time?”

“Uh... yeah?”

Courfeyrac sighs. “Okay. Let’s go inside and-“

“No! Nononono. The lights aren’t working.”

Courfeyrac opens the door. “So we’ll leave the door open for some light, and use our phones’ torches.”

“Oh. That’s a good idea.”

“Uh-huh. You know this is just the start, right?”

“Of what? Of love?” Marius cautiously steps through the doorway.

Courfeyrac sweeps his arms in the air. “No, the start of a _war_. Oh, your first prank of many to come, my young padawan! We’ll get them back, just you wait.”

Marius’ eyes almost pop out of their sockets. “No way.” He peers under the couch to discover the source of the strange orange light - just a few glow sticks.

“Yes way,” Courfeyrac grins. “So, tell me about this Ghost Girl. And go wash the blood off your hands, you look like you’ve killed someone.”

“Courf, she’s gorgeous,” Marius says. “And she gave me tissues.”

“Here’s a plaster. Oh, wow, that Jack-o’-Lantern is awesome.”

“She had blue hair!”

Courfeyrac opens the curtains. “The bedroom lights work. I’m gonna go get changed, okay?”

“She had eyes like... like summer skies, and the sweetest voice,” Marius sighs. “Courf, I’m in love and I’m never going to find her again!”

“You ready to go?”

“Yeah. Do you think we’ll find each other?”

“I’m sure you will. Written in the stars, right? And if it takes forever, I’ll help you. If only so that you’ll stop moping about her,” Courfeyrac adds.

“Aww,” Marius says, and pulls him into a hug. “Thanks, Courf.”

The dreamy smile stays on Marius’ face all the way to the Musain.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading <3 i'm @fictionalclouds on tumblr, come and say hi !


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